Return of the Dummy
by Kessie-Louise
Summary: Joanna Carter had always liked Gothic items, but Slappy wasn't what she had in mind...
1. Jo

Joanna Carter jogged around her block with her headphones blasting music louder than the average person can bear into her ears. She was oblivious to anything outside of her attention zone. Any car that went by would have been drowned out by the pulsating beat of Rihanna's music. So when someone did try to get her attention, it would have been proven a difficult task.

"Hey Jo." a neighbor said as Joanna as she took a moment to breathe and get a drink of water. Joanna ignored him, and he sensed this.

"Jo." he repeated. Finally, figuring that her music was to blame, went over to Joanna and took off her headphones.

"Hello Joanna." he said again, knowing he had her full attention now.

"Oh." Joanna said, rather disappointed that he had taken her headphones off. "Hello Mr. Johnson. How's Duchess?"

Duchess was Johnson's cat that his wife had left him before the woman died. The cat is all he had left to remind him of his wife.

"Pretty well." Johnson told her. "Why are you wearing dark clothes in this weather? Aren't you hot?"

Joanna rolled her eyes. She had on a dark brown tracksuit on and was very red in the face to show she was hotter than normal.

"I'm fine." she told the old man. "Good bye Mr. Johnson."

And with that, she left in a quick burst of energy that Johnson didn't even realize she was gone until she was several feet away.

"Mom, Vinny, I'm home!" Joanna shouted a few minutes later when she finished jogging. After a few moments, no answer came so she called out again.

"Mom! Vinny! Are you home?"

A creek from upstairs answered her. Absentmindedly, Joanna walked up the stairs and continued to call out.

"Mom! Vinny! Are you home or not?"

A loud and long moaning sound came from the bathroom. Joanna froze. The moan did not sounds like a good one. She quickly advanced to the bathroom, but before she put her hand on the knob it opened by itself and someone ran into her at full speed. Joanna let out a surprised scream as she tumbled onto the floor, the person that ran into her screamed as well, just as surprised as she was.

"Good god Vincent Trapp, don't SCARE me like that!" she shouted at the person she ran into.

"Well, I didn't plan for it to go like that." Vinny said helping Joanna up. "You just happened to be standing right there when I got out."

"Why were you in the bathroom any way?" Joanna asked, putting her hands on her hips, beginning to enter a foul mood.

"I had to take a shower." Vinny told her like it was obvious. In a way it was; his hair was still wet with a few unrinsed suds still hidden in his bleach blonde hair. "I was... uh..."

"Dumpster diving again?" Joanna asked, a nasty smile curling onto her lips.

"Yes." Vinny sheepishly said, blushing slightly. "But I think I found something you might like though."

Joanna smirked.

"Oh yeah? What?" she challenged.


	2. Slappy

Vinny lugged out a large suitcase from under Joanna's mother's car. It looked ancient, and possibly water damaged as well. Joanna wasn't impressed.

"A suitcase?" she asked, slowly blinking him.

"Not just any suitcase." Vinny told her, getting a key out of his pocket and jamming it into the lock on the suitcase.

"Skeleton keys." Vinny mumbled, almost to himself. "Bloody brilliant invention."

Joanna rolled her eyes again as Vinny successfully unlocked the lock and opened it up. He withdrew something from the box and let Joanna have a look. It was a dummy in a black suit complete with a little red rose on his right breast and bow tie around his neck.

"Classy." she approved. "Ancient looking though, but classy. But I'm not a ventriloquist. I'm not even a doll person."

Vinny shrugged.

"I knew that, so I thought this might make it up."

He then withdrew a gold ring with strange markings on it from his pocket and handed it to Joanna. She inspected it, and tried it on her right ring finger to see how it looked. When she pointed her hand down, the ring fell off. She bent down to pick the ring up again and placed it on her right thumb. It fit snugly there and she liked it.

"Better with jewelry than you are with toys." she told him. "No wonder Mom wants to marry you. Is it real gold?"

"It might be, I did all my fool-proof gold testing techniques to make sure."

Joanna smiled at Vinny, although it resembled something more of a smirk.

"Thanks Vinny." she said, giving him a hug. She smiled at him again, and gingerly picked up the dummy to take him to her room. She left the suitcase in the garage where Vinny hid it behind some boxes that contained emergency supplies.

Joanna climbed up the stairs with the dummy cradled in her arms and the ring still on her finger. She walked to one of the last doors in the hallway and opened it. Inside revealed a room with white walls and gray carpeting. Most of the furniture had been painted black, except for the box seat in front of the window which was as white as the wallpaper.

"This is my room." Joanna carelessly said to the dummy. "I was trying to go for Gothic (I like the style of it, not the attitude) but Mom is limited in what I can and can't do."

Joanna then carefully put the dummy on the box seat and stepped back to look at him. She raised an eyebrow at his features. His smile was cocked into something nearly mocking, or if even, nasty. His eyes were enlarged and slightly out of its sockets, but Joanna supposed this was how the ventriloquist could control his eyelids to make them blink. She wouldn't know, she wasn't good with that kind of stuff. Then Joanna noticed the stitching around the pocket on the dummy's suit. That was something so was good at; sticking and embroidery. She felt the seams with great care and admiration, then she realized something was slightly sticking out of the pocket and carefully withdrew it. On a small business card type paper, contained words. Words in some different language she knew she didn't know the origins from.

"Freaky." she said, turning the card over then looking at the words again. But she shrugged and folded the card in two and stuck it in her back pocket. Then from downstairs, she could hear her mother come home and went down to meet her. As she got closer to the entry room, she could hear the heated discussion between her and Vinny.

"Why did you bring that thing here? She doesn't like dolls and you know that."

"But she likes Gothic things though. And Slappy did look pretty Gothic..."

"I don't CARE if Slappy looked Gothic or not. Don't you see? If she reads though words...?"

"Hey." Joanna said when she entered the room. "What'd I miss?"

"Jo!" Vinny and Joanna's mother said at the same time, surprised that she was there.

"Hello." Joanna responded. "Where you talking about me?"

Joanna's mother sighed.

"We were dear." she said like she was about to announce that someone had died. "And we need to tell you something about Slappy."

"Slappy?" Joanna asked, slightly confused.

"The dummy." Joanna's mother and Vinny said at the same time.

"Oh, yeah." Joanna said, not knowing that the dummy had a name. "What about him?"

"Have you've read those words?" Joanna's mother asked.

"What words?" Joanna asked, confused on where her mother was going with this. Her mother closed her eyes.

"I can't say them, but I don't want to either. Neither should you if that be the case. Did you read those words?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't even know what you're talking about!"

Joanna's mother scanned her daughter for lies, but as far as Joanna knew, she wasn't.

"Jo... Slappy is pure evil."


	3. Those Words

At first, Joanna snorted then she ended up laughing.

"I'm serious Jo!" her mother snapped. "My cousin..."

"Mom, it's a dummy." Joanna laughed. "Seriously."

Joanna laughed as she left the room, thinking her mother to be hilarious. She went back to her room and shut the door to laugh some more.

"Mom thinks you're evil Slappy." she told the dummy, still seated on the window box seat. "And she said something about words, dunno what she was talking about though."

Then she remembered the card that contained the foreign words on it, and took it out of her pocket. She looked back at Slappy. She showed the dummy the card.

"Know what this means?" she taunted. "Well I'm not saying it out loud for you. You can read the words and haunt me or whatever it is you do if you have eyes and a mouth can't you?"

She snickered.

"And Mom said you were evil." she said, lightly chuckling. Then she actually took a good look at the words. She played them over in her head several times, just to figure out how it was said, then she raised an eyebrow. Then, by a will not her own, she said the words she said she wouldn't have,

"Karru Marri... Odonna Loma... Molonu Karrano."

When she realized what she had said she dropped the card and held her hands over her mouth. She took a quick look at Slappy to see any signs of something wrong. Nothing.

She put her hands down at her side and laughed at herself in a paranoid and unsettled way. She shook her head to think that she had done something really, really, REALLY dumb like thinking that whatever she did 'woke' the dummy up. But then again...

"Jo! Dinner's ready!" Joanna's mom called out.

"Coming Mom!" Joanna shouted back. Joanna took one last look at the dummy, then left the room for dinner.

After Joanna shut the door, the dummy (though not operated by any living being) turned his head toward the door and tilted his head, smiling in a menacing way he only knew how to.

Dinner went over pretty well for Joanna, and Slappy was the furthest thing from her mind. Her mother, however, was studying Joanna like a disgusting bug or like a ticking time bomb. Vinny was the life of the party, some how sensing that each girl was trying to cover something up. Or, at least, try to preserve something dear to her.

"How do you like your ring Jo?" Vinny asked. Joanna gave him a thumbs up, showing that she was still wearing the ring around her thumb.

"Lovin' it." she told him.

"Good." Vinny nodded. "I expect it back soon since its going to be your mother's wedding ring."

Joanna's mother shot Vinny a very unhappy look. Vinny threw his hands into the air in protest.

"I'm kidding!" he said. "I'm kidding! The ring's all yours Jo. Honest."

Joanna smiled and chuckled a little, while her mother didn't appreciate the joke at all.

"I BETTER get a good ring for my wedding." Joanna's mother said, "You're the one with the money." She smiled a bit to show she was joking as well.

"Would I be dumpster diving if I had money sweetie?" Vinny asked in a joking tone.

"If you were crazy enough." Joanna casually said into her cup before she took a long sip from it. Vinny chuckled and Joanna ended up having water coming out of her nose from laughing. Even Joanna's mother laughed a little before returning back to her dinner.

After dinner was done and she had cleared the table, Joanna went back up to her room. She felt lightheaded from the happy evening and had forgotten all about Slappy. She opened her bedroom door and shut it securely behind her.

"Hello." someone said from behind. Joanna froze in fear, what her mother had said about those words (words Joanna now understood her mother was warning her about were the words she found in Slappy's pocket) came back to her in an instant.


	4. Home Alone

"Are you deaf? I said 'hello.'" the voice said from behind her again. The voice did not sound happy, or at the most part friendly. It was cold and dark, and possibly even a bit murderous. Joanna stood where she was, still frozen in shock.

"Turn around!" the voice barked. "We need to talk face to face..."

Slowly, Joanna turned around and stared at a dummy at the foot of her bed. His legs were crossed and his hands were placed on his lap almost in an expecting way. She gave him a rather slow blink.

"Hello." she said, calmly although she was still heavily shocked inside. She found it amazing she was even able to speak.

Slappy held his hand up, as if in a signal for her to silence. Joanna obliged.

"When will they be asleep?" he asked. Joanna didn't know what he was talking about for a moment, and didn't answer him.

"When will they be asleep?" Slappy asked again, his voice getting a bit louder and more threatening.

"Who?" Joanna asked, braving the risk.

"The adults!" Slappy told her, getting even louder.

"They won't be asleep tonight." Joanna told him. He sneered at the answer, so Joanna also added, "Mom and Vinny were going to some location for their wedding. Dunno why this late though, unless they were going to some 24 hour shop."

Joanna looked at Slappy like he had a gun in his hands; he looked like he was going to strike at any moment. His unblinking eyes stared straight at her in thought and consideration.

"When will they be leaving?" Slappy asked, his voice unnaturally quiet all of a sudden. As if on cue (or an answer from the heavens), Joanna's mom shouted,

"Jo, we're leaving now!"

Quickly, and without Slappy's approval, Joanna left her room and hurried downstairs. She smiled at her mother and gave her and Vinny a hug.

"Be safe." Joanna told her mother. "I'll be fine here."

Joanna's mother moved her so they could look face to face.

"Are you sure?" she asked in a very motherly tone. Joanna nodded her head sincerely.

"Honest." Joanna confirmed, even trying to work in a smile.

"Alright." Joanna's mother sighed. "Good luck." And she gave her daughter a long hug in goodbye.

Joanna watched as her mother and Vinny left the house and waited until she heard the car leave the drive lane before she moved again.

Joanna bolted into the garage and found a badminton racket and Slappy's suitcase. She worked her way up to her room (the suitcase has heavier than what it looked) and found that Slappy wasn't sitting on her bed anymore. Then she remembered she hadn't shut to door when she left to tell her mother good bye.

"Oh crap." Joanna cursed under her breath when she realized her mistake. Just then, something laughed in a laugh that echoed throughout the house. Joanna didn't even have to guess that it was Slappy somewhere in her house, planning her downfall. The thought made Joanna curse again at her luck.


	5. Little Caesar's Laws

Joanna had never realized how dark her house was until she had an enchanted dummy running around, ready to attack her at any moment. Then again, no one ever really did.

She waited to hear Slappy's laugh again, and follow to the source. Her worst fear was that he was right behind her, ready to attack. But no one was, her regular checks behind her back made sure of that.

Another thing that crossed Joanna's mind was the fact at how she was reacting to this. Here she was, holding a badminton racket chasing down a mad living doll, when SHE would have been the one to shout 'Boo!' at a horror movie as loud as she could when everything had gotten quiet and suspenseful. What was wrong with that picture? Maybe, instead of just disliking dolls, she was actually quite afraid of them.

No. She wasn't going to be in fear. There was no reason for it, not for her character at least. She was going to find out what the dummy wanted of her, and outsmart him. But how was she to do that?

Suddenly, a crash came from downstairs, and Joanna instantly ran down the steps to see what it was. A window in the living room had been cracked by something. Joanna checked the damage and found lots of tiny pieces of glass, but not the object that broke the window. However, she found that it was raining outside now, with rumbles of thunder in the distance. How come she didn't notice that before? Was the weather man even calling for rain tonight?

"Hello slave." Slappy said with an evil cocked smile. Joanna slowly turned around to face him. She held the badminton racket as if it was a bat. Slappy laughed menacingly at her.

"Slave?" Joanna asked, doing her best to show no fear.

"You said the words." Slappy told her. "'You and I are one now.'"

This hit Joanna with an idea.

"If we are one now, then I can't be your slave." she told him.

"Excuse me?" Slappy asked in a menacing tone, staring her down.

"If we are one, then that just means that if one dies so would the other." Joanna told him slyly, slowly lowering the badminton racket. "We can live completely separate lives but maybe feel each other's pain and emotions and memories and new experiences. But that doesn't mean that any one has to be any one's slave."

Slappy gave her a cold look.

"Lies." he hissed. Joanna shook her head.

"No." she said, a smile fit for tricksters and thieves was etched onto her face. "Even if we did just that, then there are laws we must obey."

"What is this law?" Slappy asked, as if asking for a challenge.

"The Three Laws of Little Caesar."

Slappy looked at her for signs of lying, but she looked pretty honest and serious. Naturally curious of three laws he had never heard of before, he asked,

"What are they?"

Joanna gave him a smile-smirk and recited,

"It is the written the First Law; A living dummy may not injure its human being or allow its human being, family, or friends to come to harm. And vice versa."

"The second law?" Slappy asked, staring at her for signs of bluffing or making it up as she went along.

"As it is written in the Second Law; A living dummy can obey any orders given to it its human being, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. And vice versa."

Slappy recoiled at this law, he didn't like the sound of it. He was beginning to hate these Laws, there was no way around them. They blended together so well, he couldn't find a loophole.

"The third law. What does it say?" he demanded quietly. Joanna smiled at him in an even more mischievous look than what she had.

"As it is written in the Third Law; A living dummy must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law."

"And vice versa." Slappy muttered.

"Now you're catching on." Joanna agreed.

Slappy took a moment to take this in, then he looked at Joanna with a look that could read death.

"Enough stalling!" Slappy suddenly demanded. "You... are... my... SLAVE!"

Slappy leaped at Joanna who gave a smug smile as she lifted up the badminton racket, ready to swing with all the force she had in her.


	6. The Unloved

"Jo! Jo are you still at home!" Joanna's mother called throughout the house, looking for her daughter.

"She's more than likely asleep still." Vinny assured. Joanna's mother didn't seem to hear him as she still called out to Joanna.

"Jo! Jo! Joanna answer me!" her mother called out.

"I'm in the attic." Joanna said, breathless but triumphant. Without Vinny giving her an objection to go, Joanna's mother rushed up to the attic and found her daughter sitting in front of Slappy's suitcase. Locked once again. One look at the suitcase and her daughter in a rather rough state, made Joanna's mother run over to hug her. Vinny came up to the attic not soon after and nearly fell over in surprise at the attic.

"What in the WORLD happened in here?" he asked in shock.

Joanna looked around the attic, not really aware of the state she had put it in. Everything was either broke or about to break and some parts of the attic had small pools of blood or some unidentified green goo on it as well.

"A big and ugly boss battle." Joanna said, looking around, becoming more aware of the damage done. Suddenly, Joanna's mother made her look at her straight in the eye.

"When were you given a symbol of love recently?" she asked in a severe and stern tone.

"Yesterday." Joanna said. Both Vinny and her mother looked surprised. Joanna explained,

"Vinny gave me a symbol of love with the gold ring he found that someone had threw out. His joke at last night dinner proved that to me in a way. He compared it to Mom's wedding ring, and it was just as important."

Vinny blushed at the factor in his unknown role in the ordeal. Then he looked at Joanna's thumb where the ring had been.

"Where is the ring?" he asked.

"Oh..." Joanna said, his face growing red for some reason. "I... uh... gave it away..."

"To who?" her mother and Vinny asked at the same time. Joanna didn't say, instead she motioned toward Slappy's suitcase. Joanna's mother hugged her daughter tightly.

"Oh Jo... you showed him love..." she said softly.

"I thought about those stories... you know, the ones that that man who interviewed your cousin when Slappy attacked her. The stories I believed to be complete fiction until now..."

"Every one does sweetie."

"Well, I remembered the story about the unloved mask, and thought that maybe Slappy wasn't that far off... and I had told him the Three Laws of Little Caesar..."

"What's that?" Vinny whispered to Joanna's mother, who raised her hand for him to silence so Joanna could finish her tale.

"Then I told him that if he and I were to be one forever, then he had to abide by these laws and that I wouldn't be his slave. Then I gave him the ring. I told him that the moment he followed these laws without trying to find a way out of it, I would be his bride without question and he and I would be one at last."

"What did Slappy do?" Joanna's mother asked.

"He looked at the ring, then at me, then his eyes slid forward into his skull and he fell over. Lifeless."

"Dead?" Vinny asked. Joanna shook her head.

"Slappy can't die. But there was no life in him. I don't know how, but I could just... just tell by looking at him."

"Then what did you do?" Joanna's mother asked, shivering head to toe, more afraid of what Joanna was saying instead of what Joanna actually did.

"I carefully put him in his suitcase again, got Vinny's skeleton keys to lock it, and I've been sitting here ever since. Shocked but relieved it was over."

A few days later, in the worst of summer heat, Joanna decided to jog around the block again. She stopped at Mr. Johnson's house just to see him. He was surprised at her visit, but welcomed her in regardless.

"It is over 90 degrees outside Jo, and you're STILL wearing dark clothes out!" he remarked as she sat down on his couch. Joanna laughed as Johnson went into the kitchen to get some Oreos and milk, while Duchess came into the room.

"Hello there Duchess." Joanna said to the cat nicely. The cat meowed a reply, then jumped into her lap. Joanna stroked the cat which made it purr, then she saw something on Duchess that seemed a bit different than what she remembered the cat looking as.

"Come here Duchess." Joanna coaxed the cat, lifting it up so she could see the face. "I want to see something."

Joanna smiled as she looked at the cat's face, but when her eyes fell upon the cat's eyes, her smile quickly faded. Joanna's eyes grew wide as the eyes of a less than lifeless dummy stared back at her, and she dropped the cat who almost seemed to snicker at her. Johnson heard the cat and came back into the living room.

"Jo?" he asked, seeing Joanna's shocked and pale face. "Jo? Are you alright? Joanna!"

But she was frozen, frozen in a state of an internal vow that only a certain dummy wanted to keep and break to claim his slave bride... or die trying.


End file.
